I think this is the area I want this discussion to go and unfortunately I don't think we have a lot of scientific or statistical studies to go off. We really only have subjective statements from vapors with "no real data". Regardless of that fact how do you justify to family members, friends, etc that all you have done is transfer the delivery system. But in reality you are still just as addicted to nicotine as you were before?
Maybe your family, friends, etc are more accepting of the "healthier" fact...but again a lot of the people I associate with still see it as a weakness.
Okay. And?
No, I'm serious. And?
In the end, it won't be them that bear the health consequences of what you do to yourself. There is a limit to how much the opinions of others matter.
Also to a certain extent I agree with them that being dependent on any drug even if it's just caffeine in coffee probably isn't healthy. My sister had headaches for months when going from a 6 diet cokes a day to zero. That may be part aspartame or whatever the unnatural sugar is...but again my point is addiction is weakness. I don't want to have a nicotine addiction for years as I personally don't feel that is healthy.
Probably was the caffeine. Caffeine and nicotine may actually be on par with each other on addictive potential.
To each their own...but for me I don't want to have an addiction looming over my head forever and ever. Welcome everyone's thoughts and do not want to put anyone down that has quit smoking analogs in exchange for ecigs. This is my personal battle with myself, my family, and my friends. I truly want to be addiction free at some point.
You will be. When you're dead.
I hate to tell you this but one of the fundamental realities of addiction is that it involves the manipulation of neurotransmitters such as dopamine to which you are "addicted" from the day you were born until the day you die. In fact, without your inherent dopamine "addiction", you wouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning. Or any other morning. Without a dopamine "addiction", you'd see no point to life and probably throw yourself off a bridge or some such thing.
This is why Pfizer is settling over 2700 cases involving suicides or attempted suicides by users of Chantix (to the tune of $273 million so far). Chantix was
intended to stop nicotine from triggering dopamine production. In far too many cases, it apparently inhibits dopamine production or uptake and the people in question ceases to see the point of life itself. And kill themselves.
There are critical neurotransmitter "addictions" that are the reason you bother living and without them, you stop.
What we commonly call "addiction" is artificially triggering these neurotransmitters in ways that are harmful are become harmful in some way. But it's an ill defined concept. Always has been. It's not easy to come up with hard lines of what is and is not "harmful".
A caffeine addiction, for example. It exists. It's real. It may be, for many, as strong as a nicotine addiction is for some. But if you were to start talking of the "scourge of caffeine" and trying to outlaw Starbucks, you'll be treated as a lunatic. Never mind it and nicotine have so many parallels (both, for example, are natural pesticides derived from plants that developed them to fend off bugs that would eat the plant). Never mind that caffeine addition may be more common than nicotine addiction (for all we know... does anybody bother to check?).
What are the long term health consequences of being a coffee drinker?
Duh... erm... um... huh?
Sure, there probably are some. Some positive. Some negative. And we've all bothered to fret over that issue for how many seconds?
Caffeine addiction--and, remember, it may be equal in strength to a nicotine addiction--is treated as
funny. I was bored and watching old reruns of ST:Voyager on Netflix (yeesh, I had to be really bored to do that). In it, one funny bit about the captain is she can't deal with anybody or anything before her coffee. A clear sign of caffeine addiction. This was treated as an "amusing bit of characterization".
The overall consequences to society are... less than trivial? I am unaware of mass scale smuggling of illegal coffee. I do not believe I've read of gang wars or "caffeine kings" having people killed. There do not appear to be any crime statistics associated with coffee use. As in such things as people breaking into homes to steal things to fund a trip to Starbucks. No stories of parents neglecting their children because of coffee use. Starbucks never seems to look like a "drug den". At least not last I went.
But this "line" where caffeine is on one side and nicotine the other may well be arbitrary and purely socially constructed. There is research that suggests the two may be more or less equivalent in addictive power.
Until
now (as in recent times, not this instant), nicotine was only available in a clearly dangerous form. That is the combustion of tobacco and the inhalation of smoke. Humans, not being smoke breathing creatures, do not do well with lungs full--pretty much nonstop--of smoke and harsh chemicals. We do know that method of acquiring nicotine is a serious health risk. And not just to the user but the people around them.
So this one kind of turns on the issue of the delivery system.
You know people who go to the gym a lot? Are in great shape? They deliberately addict themselves to a forced production of certain endorphins. Which are: "any of a group of peptides, resembling opiates, that are released in the body in response to stress or trauma and that react with the brain's opiate receptors to reduce the sensation of pain."
Notice this bit? "...resembling opiates..."?
Weight training is an opium addiction.
I am not kidding. Did heavy weight training when I was younger (and better get myself back into shape, I ain't getting any younger). You get high. Actual, serious, high. It's a euphoric feeling. It's great stuff. I loved it.
Exercise is a thing meant to
deliberately addict yourself to a healthy behavior.
I deny that "addiction", in and of itself, is a problem. A superbly fit athlete is damn well addicted to opiates produced naturally by exercise. Instead of "treating" them, we sign them to multimillion dollar contracts. A street addicted user of opiates is thrown in jail.
Go figure?
We need better terms than just "addiction is bad". We may need to jettison the word "addiction" entirely.
By the way, all humans are sex addicts. If we weren't, our species would have died out and we wouldn't be here to have this discussion...